British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) reportedly used spoofed LinkedIn and Slashdot pages to compromise the computers of network engineers working for global roaming exchange providers based in Europe.
Special teams from GCHQ's My Network Operations Centre (MyNOC) division identified key employees doing network maintenance and security at the targeted companies and determined which of them were users of LinkedIn or Slashdot.org. The teams then directed the targeted individuals to fake versions of those sites which contained malicious code designed to install malware on their computers, German magazine Der Spiegel reported based on secret GCHQ documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden.
The technology used for these computer infiltration operations is called "Quantum Insert" and according to past media reports it was also used by the NSA.
GCHQ used this system to target network engineers from Belgian telecommunications provider Belgacom as part of an operation called "Socialist," as well as the employees of "international mobile billing clearinghouses" as part of a separate operation called "Wylekey," Der Spiegel reported.
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